


Man-Buns Are So Not Hot

by fiber_for_rabbits



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bickering, Braids, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Cute, Cute Ending, Fights, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gay Keith (Voltron), Hair Braiding, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Homesickness, Latino Lance (Voltron), M/M, One Shot, Pining Keith (Voltron), Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron), Sparring, klance, man bun, man buns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 22:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11068173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiber_for_rabbits/pseuds/fiber_for_rabbits
Summary: After a sparring match, Lance offers to pin up Keith's gross, sweaty, and tangled hair.--Lots of fluff!This is a chapter from another one of my works but I thought it could work well as a one-shot too.





	Man-Buns Are So Not Hot

Keith always considered it an accident when something happened by coincidence. Especially when it came to learning more about Lance.

Don’t get the wrong idea from this. It wasn’t that Keith didn’t have any interest in the blue paladin, he just felt too shy to pursue it. It wasn't that he was really shy, it was more that he was afraid. The red paladin didn’t feel like it would be in his place to simply slide by Lance and just start chatting about what nice weather they were having even though they were on a dumb spaceship in the middle of nowhere.

Even thinking about it made Keith cringe. He and Lance just needed to stick with the roles they were assigned to.

Lance hated him, right? And so he hated Lance? Since that was how it had come to be, he would learn to live with it.

But that wasn’t true. Keith Kogane did not hate Lance. If he had to choose a word to describe the feeling it would have to be inspiration. He felt awe in the confidence he wore around suicide missions and Allura's rejections. 

Maybe all his cockiness wasn’t 100% lovey dovey turn ons- okay most of what came out of Lance's large ego was resentment and bitter irritation. But on the lighter, more positive note, it was inspiration. And maybe a little feeling of something else was in there as well.

The main point was that Keith wouldn’t talk to Lance because Keith already had the impression of being stuck-up and self sufficient. But he wasn’t! 

Keith felt social barriers close in on him when it came to interacting people. He didn’t like large crowds. He didn’t like talking longer than he was expected to. So he wan't really stuck-up or self sufficient. That shell he cast was fake, fake, and more fake.

Keith could tell himself this, but he couldn't tell anyone else. There was no way he could sit down with snarky and stubborn Lance, explain this, and change the image he had of him. He couldn’t flick a switch and talk Lance into thinking the person he had been accustomed to bickering with was gone.

So he ignored him and his problems. But there were times- small brushes of shoulders when walking by or seconds of eye contact over dinner- that meant something else. And there were times where their small quarrels over each other's fashion statements or music choices disappeared. 

Even so, this didn’t happen a lot. Once in a blue moon maybe. If so, then today was that day.

Keith had been sparring with Lance in the training room for about two hours before it happened. Just the two of them. Usually it was just the two anyways.

For Pidge had never felt completely comfortable about fighting, even after a year of being on Team Voltron. She instead insisted on keeping to herself. Shiro, as always, was too tired and swore another round of moving his “old arthritic body” just to throw a few punches would surely wear him down. Hunk was a strong fighter but was too nervous to keep his fight up. He’d spar with Keith for a good while and then land a good punch that would knock Keith to the floor. He’d then get extremely upset and always ended up hysterically looking for the first aid kit.

This left Keith and Lance. They were a good fit though. Some of their traits mirrored each other perfectly: both were ambitious and each had their own goal in mind. So there was no harm in crossing swords on a day to day basis.

The short hours of training together were usually spent sparring. After a quarter hour spent stretching, they entered the ring together in their paladin bodysuits and makeshift sparring gloves made out of old bandages stolen from a first aid kit.

After their session of jabs, punches, and grunts, the two were left sore, sweaty, and bruised. They usually ended up lying on their backs with bottles of water and the puddles that came from them when stiff limbs grabbed the bottle too firmly.

They lay breathing heavily, both concentrating on trivial things, like how to slow their breathing because to them it was EXTREMELY embarrassing how much air they were inhaling with each passing second.

Keith had sat up, exhausted and fogged. He remembered reaching up to the nape of neck and brushing his hair over to let his neck breath. His hair by here was sticky and hot and almost plastered to his skin. At this point he had reached up and started hand combing his hair, using his fingers to gather up his locks to hopefully morph into a makeshift bun.

He had stared at wall with his eyebrows knitted for several minutes wondering why he kept failing the art of man-buns. It was then Keith remembered that he had just cut his nails. Usually they were long and somehow “perfectly manicured,” as Pidge teased, but he ended up cutting them a week ago and still had useless nubs. So he had no grip in combing hair.

“Ah fuck. The nubs are back”

Oh god, he sounded idiotic. But he didn't care that much either. It was the number one clue that it was one of those days; the ones where Keith was too exhausted physically and mentally to stop anything his instincts whined to do. He was on autopilot and what came to his mind he said and what slipped out he let go.

Lance had looked over in response to the noise, still lying on the floor. His nostrils flared every time he exhaled. He was still trying to slow his breathing.

Keith's competitor looked through lidded eyes as Keith pathetically attempted bunching his hair into his fist. His face filled with red and was painted over twice with embarrassment.

“Come on, give me credit. I’m trying.”

Lance rolled his eyes at a pace that was too slow to even be considered an eye roll. Did he need to see a doctor?

“Not my fault I wear my hair like a greaser wannabe.”

Keith attempted giving the coldest look he could muster, but his exhaustion blocked out the usual threat. Lance chuckled at his own comeback.

Keith refocused and tried to wind his fingers around the bunch of hair and flinched when he pulled too tight. Strands fell out and drifted back into his face. Lance laughed harder.

"I hope you choke on saliva and sweat."

"Uh-huh. Nice threat emo kid cool kid."

Lance exhaled and breathed in again.

“But if you want, I can help you.”

Keith turned, and then watched Lance pull himself from the ground and situate himself in good old 'criss-cross-applesauce.' He then obnoxiously scooted his butt across the floor until he was right behind Keith and the mop that lay atop his head.

“You don’t have to.”

For whatever reason Keith felt hotter.

“It’s my pleasure to somehow change that awful hairstyle of yours. Soooooooooo- what ya want?”

Keith bit back his reply to Lance’s comment about his hair.

“Normal braid, french braid, dutch braid, fisht-”

“Hm?”

“What do you want?”

“You know how to braid?”

Keith looked over his shoulder and watched Lance place his hands behind him and recline backward into a more comfortable position.

“Yup.”

“How?”

“My mom always made me braid my sister’s hair right before school so she wouldn’t have to. 'Liked to sleep in instead.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. Is that what you want?”

“Ah-no. No thank you. Can I just have a bun?”

Keith felt his cheeks get a bit warmer and he felt the need to bite his lip down to keep him from talking furthermore. He looked over his shoulder to see what was taking Lance so long from saving him from his sweaty and ever so hot hair.

Lance’s mouth was agape and his eyes were narrowed in disbelief.

“Hm?” Keith opened his mouth.

“Are you joking with me?”

“No?”

“Is this some new edgy emo teen sarcasm you got going on right now?”

“No?”

“So you actually want a man-bun?”

“Well yes, isn’t that what I just asked for?”

Keith rotated his body so he faced Lance. His eyes were still furrowed.

“A man-bun.”

“Yes.”

“What is wrong with you?”

Keith put a hand to his chest and pretended to swoon. “I’m hurt, Lance.”

“But they’re so-”

 

Lance lurched back and scrunched his face in disgust.

“Weird.”

Lance stayed like that for awhile, face distorted and twisted with so much disgust and confusion.

“Just hurry it up and do it.” Keith huffed, turning around so Lance could finish his work.

He could hear Lance’s butt scooting on the ground again.

“Last chance for a braid blessed by Jesus and not Satan.”

“I’ll pass.”

After Keith had said that, two hands gently slipped under his hair along his neck.

Keith wanted to melt away.

The first thing he had noticed about Lance's hands was that they were cool and smooth. His fingertips did not have rough calluses and were not soft and delicate like cotton. But they were cool. Not the clammy-and-sweaty cool or the lifeless-probably-a-zombie cool. But a comfortable cool, like the temperature of ice cream or the ocean during summer.

Before he could take a moment to enjoy the relief, a series of sharp tugs came.

“Ow ow- watch it!” Keith winced.

“You need to brush your hair more. My momma would say it's a rat’s nest.”

More sharp tugs came.

“It’s like a jungle back here! Hot and tangly and gross, gross, gross!”

“You don’t have to detangle it. Just pin it up,” the red paladin sighed.

“Alright, alright.”

Lance brought his other hand to Keith’s hairline and ran his hand through one more time to smooth out any lumps and to gather any loose hairs. Lance pulled at Keith’s hair and cupped the locks with one hand.

“Hairband please.”

Keith passed the scrunchie over his right shoulder. Lance grabbed it and continued working.

Lance tied the grouping of hair and then pulled it through the hair tie a second time before observing his work for any imperfections.

“Looking good, even for a man bun! Vamos, mi amor!”

“Really?”

“No.”

“You suck.”

Lance laughed again and pushed back a hair that had fallen out again.

“To be honest, it’s actually pretty good. But it would suck if anyone else did it. Let's just say my hairdressing skills are godly and can turn your dandruff jungle into something fine."

Lance stood up behind him as Keith reached up to touch Lance's handiwork. It was perfect.  
Oh yeah, and that one thing. He tapped Lance's shoulder.

“And the Spanish you said?”

“Vamos Keith! Where's your Spanish introductory class?"

Now it was Keith's turn to roll his eyes.

"Oh yeah, sorry you were learning 'sarcasm' back then and not Espaniol. It means 'let's go.' When I do it for my sisters, I kiss their forehead and then tell them that. Then they go to school.”

“Oh. That's nice.”

And then Keith felt his face grow warm again.


End file.
